Welcome to my book blog created 2012 of books I read and review. I exhausted space on my other blog, Pat's Posts. Better to separate my readings from my writings. Eventually I will display my entire library here. I am in the process of moving some reviews from the other blog here as well. The design of this blog has been a work in progress, slowly, bear with me...

MY OTHER BLOG

If you got here because I commented and you were directed to this blog, it is because Blogger will not show both blogs. So you can get to my Pat's Posts, by clicking this link..my miscellany, the first blog while this is just about books.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Round House by Louise Erdrich, a Minnesota author sounded interesting but tragic; published in 2012 by Harper Collins, 321 pages. It relates the tale of brutality and hardship, beginning innocently in 1988 as a boy and his father wait for mom/wife to return home in North Dakota on an Indian reservation. The brutal attack of a Native woman weaves the tale. This prolific MN author is a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa and has written many books, articles and poetry. I was disappointed in this book and regretted that I had purchased a hard copy although it was not available in paperback. I will be donating it to our local Library where it will either make the shelves or be passed along for the book sale. Perhaps it is the brutality and rawness that bothered me as much as some overly descriptive narrative. The characters are very well developed and do seem all lifelike although complicated depicting difficult lives where the Ojibwe Indians and white men live together very tentatively. It begins, "Small trees had attacked my parents' house at the foundation. They were just seedlings with one or two rigid healthy leaves. Nevertheless the stalky shoots had managed to squeeze through knife cracks in the decorative brown shingles covering the cement blocks." The writing ranges from good to adequate as the tale is told through Joe, the 13 year old son of Geraldine and Bazil Couts; Geraldine is brutally attacked and Joe tries to heal his mother but the entire family is consumed by the act. Bazil is a tribal judge, respected but cannot attain justice for his wife. The complications of government bureaucracy and the intersection of Native rites, police investigations and conflicts between civil and Native governance all build on the tragedy and complicate any resolution. Sometimes I felt there was too much detail information about the antics of Joe and his friends such as on pages 67-68 when the boys are at the Round House searching for evidence; it read almost as thought the author tried to compensate for being female by overdoing the descriptions of the boys in their nakedness to create an over done authentic emphasis. Another example of the overly detailed style was on pages 106-108 when the boys are confronting and stalking the local priest, Father Travis. There is interesting information about the difficulties of tribal life, the assimilation that all but eliminates Native culture and the hard times on the reservation. Pg. 193 sums up the transformation in Geraldine post attack as felt by her son. "Her voice was neutral, formal neither caustic nor falsely enthusiastic. I'd thought she was the same mother only with a hollow face,......I had believed that my real mother would emerge at some point. I would get my before mom back. But now it entered my head that this might not happen. .....Some warm part of her was gone and might not return. This new formidable woman would take getting to know and I was 13. I didn't have the time.". I give it a 3 stars out of 5 and read it in a week in January but am just now posting my review.

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Open Book

Open Book

Your books

I found this scrap clipping clearing out paperwork, there is no author, I wished I'd written it but I didn't and I don't know who did: "Your books are your autobiography; they map your history, reflect your tastes, hold emotional moments between covers."

My rating system 5 *****

I am using a 5 star rating with 5 being excellent, the best read and 1 marginal....some books may not merit 1 star. Life is too short to waste on uninteresting books...or maybe my reading time is too short, or maybe I'm just too short. But there it is 1 low to 5 high.

I read books

“I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has

Book Drunkard Quote LM Reynolds

When you finish a book

When you finish a book

You are the books you read

You are the books you read

My other blog

This is the link to my other blog, where there are reviews of books I have read prior to 2012 as well as other writings http://patonlinenewtime.blogspot.com/

About Me

This is to record books I have read, sometimes my comments may be useful to others. However I set this blog up for tracking my own reads, and a way to not repurchase something I have already read. That purpose does not always work. I do not belong to any book clubs because I prefer to choose my own books to read and the book clubs I tried did not work out for me. I wanted discussion, about writing, authors, the concepts, etc instead all I heard was, "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" no depth of conversation, so I gave up. I have been a life long reader. I will say in retirement, I do not spend enough time just reading, as I imagined I would. My days are busy and so it is unusual for me to carve out time in the day to read, mostly I read for about half an hour prior to bed. Life is different than I thought it would be. .